Financial Symmetry News & Views

Archive for ‘How We See It’

An easily forgotten truth of investing is when prices are high, skies are sunny and when prices are low it’s stormy.  In other words, successful long term investing involves turning cautious when things look good and aggressive when things look bad.  Sunny = Sell High, Stormy = Buy Low.
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“I can calculate the movement of heavenly bodies but not the madness of men.” – Sir Isaac Newton
In Jeremy Grantham’s latest quarterly letter, he profiled a story about Sir Isaac Newton in which one of the most highly regarded intellects in human history was lucky enough to enter the South Sea stock bubble rather early.  [...]

As you may have read or noticed on your end of year statements, small cap stocks were the top performing category for 2010.  These stocks outperformed their large cap counterparts and gave investors with small cap positions a significant boost to their portfolios.  All this excitement may have you thinking that now is a good [...]

We are not even six months removed from a period when many economists were predicting we’d see a double-dip recession.  Bob Veres, author of Inside Information, wrote a piece back in September that discussed some important counter-points to the bearish prognostications that perpetuate the the wall of worry a bull market typically climbs.
If you’re feeling [...]

Bill Ramsay, CFP®, recently participated in his fourth Triangle Business Journal roundtable event. The 2010 Financial Roundtable: Top Triangle Investors Dissect the Market was held…

Want to have a little mindless fun?  Try balancing the federal budget in ten minutes or less.
Believe it or not, you can actually do this on an interactive web site created by the New York Times.  There are two graphics at the top of the page: one is the projected shortfall in 2015 (a scary [...]

When you step back and look at the investment landscape, it is sometimes helpful to ask yourself if anything really IS different this time; to try to determine what has changed.
The usual answers point to recent return gyrations: the tech bubble’s spectacular burst ten years ago, the near-death experience of global capitalism in 2008-2009.  But [...]

When it comes to investing, emotions are probably the single biggest obstacle to success for most investors.  Since strong emotions often accompany politics, we feel it’s important to try and minimize politics when gathering our investment research and implementing investment strategies.
Given that there are plenty of examples of the economy and markets doing well and [...]

We work hard to build wealth for our clients while fostering an honest and open stream of communication about their financial situations. As a result, it is upsetting to us when we see deceptive marketing practices to sell investment products or promote undesirable lending practices.

The question on the mind of many investors has to be: where is the U.S. and world economy headed?  Are we moving toward a double-dip recession, or is the economy in the early stages of a long-term recovery?
At a recent industry conference in San Diego, financial advisors heard a keynote presentation by economist Todd Buchholz, [...]